Gustav Röbelen

Gustav Röbelen (born April 3, 1905 in Bregenz , Austria , † April 28, 1967 in Berlin ) was a communist resistance fighter, later a German functionary of the SED and, among other things, head of the security department of the SED Central Committee.

Life

Member of the KPD and participation in the Spanish Civil War

After attending primary school from 1919 to 1921, the son of an ironmonger and locksmith completed vocational training as a merchant in his father's ironmongery and then worked as a commercial clerk in Karlsruhe , Opole , Dresden , Weimar and Bremerhaven until 1929 . In 1929 he became a member of the KPD in Bremen , where he was the political director of a street cell and a district. In addition, he became a member of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition , the International Workers' Aid (IAH) and in 1933 of the League of Struggle Against Fascism .

After the seizure of power , he fled to Belgium in 1933 after committing an explosives theft and bodily harm , where he worked for the KPD in the border region to the German Reich until 1934 . He was arrested in 1934 and, after his release in Ghent, was head of the emigre group for Flanders . Between 1936 and 1939 he took part in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and, as captain of the Spanish People's Army, took part in the fighting for Madrid . During this time he attended a partisan school in January 1937, then belonged in February 1937 as commander of a tank special group to the partisans . After he became a member of the Partido Comunista de España (PCE) in 1938 , he subsequently completed several special assignments for the Interior Ministry of the USSR (NKVD) in various European countries.

Second World War and employee of the NKVD

In February 1939 he moved first to France and then in April 1939 to the Soviet Union , where he worked as a locksmith in Mytishchi in Moscow Oblast between 1939 and 1940 . In June 1941 he began training at the party college of the CPSU in Pushkino , but had to break it off in June 1941 after the start of the German-Soviet war and was initially mobilized as an officer of the NKVD.

He then took part in the Second World War as an officer in the Red Army from 1941 to 1945 and initially did intelligence work in Iran between 1941 and August 1943 . After his return to the Soviet Union , he led training courses for German prisoners of war before he was deployed as a partisan in Belarus and Lithuania for special NKVD assignments from September 1944 to October 1945 .

Functionary in the GDR

In March 1946 he returned to Germany, settled in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ) and was initially head of the department for general administration and staff at the German Commission for Sequestration and Confiscation for the control of expropriations from April 1946 to April 1948 responsible for war criminals in Thuringia . From May to August 1948 he was deputy head of the Office for Administration of the German Economic Commission (DWK) before becoming a member of the Central Commission for State Control (ZKK). However, he was released from this position in May 1949 after conflicts arose with the head of the ZKK Fritz Lange , who rejected the use of "inadmissible interrogation methods" by Röbelen.

This was followed in May 1949 by his appointment as head of the main administration for the protection of the national economy at the Central Committee of the SED, which was renamed in 1950 to M-Department or Department 202 VW, before it became the newly created department for security issues of the Central Committee of the SED in 1953. In this function he was also instrumental in building up the German People's Police (DVP), the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (KVP), the Ministry for State Security (MfS) and the National People's Army (NVA) and initially had the rank of chief inspector and then major general of the DVP inside. Röbelen had also been a member since September 8, 1953 and since 1954 also secretary of a security commission made up of Walter Ulbricht , Hermann Matern , Otto Grotewohl , Willi Stoph , Karl Schirdewan and Ernst Wollweber and was considered a close confidante of Ulbricht. He held the position of department head for security matters until autumn 1956 and was then replaced by Walter Borning , although his position seemed to be weakened by 1953.

Röbelen then became head of the department for patriotic education ("Dienststelle R [öbelen]") at the Ministry of National Defense (MfNV) and in this function was responsible for partisan actions planned in the event of war in the Federal Republic of Germany . In 1957, as Colonel of the NVA, he became head of Administration 15 of the MfNV, which emerged from Department R, before he became head of the school administration of the Ministry of Transport in 1959 and held this office until his retirement in March 1964.

On May 6, 1955 he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit (VVO) in silver. He received the patriotic earnings again was in the grave conditioning 1965. His ashes Pergolenweg the memorial of the socialists at the Berlin Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde buried.

Background literature

• Stephan Fingerle, Jens Gieseke : Partisans of the Cold War. The underground troops of the National People's Army 1957–1962 and their takeover by the State Security (= BF informs 14). The Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic - Dept. Education and Research, Berlin 1996.
• Thomas Auerbach : Task Force on the invisible front. Terrorism and sabotage preparation of the Stasi against the Federal Republic (= analyzes and documents 17). Links, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86153-183-6 .
• Hubertus Knabe : West work of the MfS. The interplay of "education" and "defense" (= analyzes and documents 18). With the collaboration of Bernd Eisenfeld . Links, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86153-182-8 .
• Thomas Horstmann: logic of arbitrariness. The Central Commission for State Control in the Soviet Zone / GDR from 1948 to 1958 (= work on the history of law in the GDR 3). Böhlau, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-412-07401-2 (also: Bamberg, Univ., Diss., 2000).
• Armin Wagner : Walter Ulbricht and the secret security policy of the SED. The National Defense Council of the GDR and its prehistory (1953 to 1971) (= military history of the GDR 4). Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86153-280-8 (also: Potsdam, Univ., Diss., 2001).
• Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Röbelen, Gustav . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thomas Horstmann: Logic of arbitrariness. The Central Commission for State Control in the Soviet Zone / GDR from 1948 to 1958 . Böhlau, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-412-07401-2 , p. 71.
2. ↑ Thomas Horstmann: Logic of arbitrariness. The Central Commission for State Control in the Soviet Zone / GDR from 1948 to 1958 . Böhlau, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-412-07401-2 , pp. 175, 180.
3. ^ Armin Wagner: Walter Ulbricht and the secret security policy of the SED. The National Defense Council of the GDR and its history (1953 to 1971) . Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86153-280-8 , p. 239.
4. ↑ Security Commission (nationale-verteidigungsrat.de)
5. ↑ Chronicle (17juni53.de)
6. ^ Armin Wagner: Walter Ulbricht and the secret security policy of the SED. The National Defense Council of the GDR and its history (1953 to 1971) . Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86153-280-8 , pp. 68, 101, 124, 240.
7. ^ Hubertus Knabe: West work of the MfS. The interplay of "education" and "defense" . With the collaboration of Bernd Eisenfeld. Links, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86153-182-8 , p. 76.
8. ^ Armin Wagner: Walter Ulbricht and the secret security policy of the SED. The National Defense Council of the GDR and its history (1953 to 1971) . Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86153-280-8 , p. 69.
9. ^ Homepage of the socialist cemetery
10. ↑ West work of the MfS .
11. ^ Logic of arbitrariness (Google Books) .
12. ↑ Walter Ulbricht and the secret security policy of the SED (Google Books) .